Since we are using bo7 in the KO round, I had to reintroduce the former starter rule for KO too.

C. Starter rule
Odd games are random starting, even games are started by the player that did not start the previous game. If a game is a tie, although it doesn't count for the match in terms of games won, it counts as a game played.

This wouldn't prevent from having all teams from the same country in the same group.
You could add something about that (i.e. not possible to draw a team from country X if you have already one in you group, excepted if there is already on in each group)

"You could add something about that (i.e. not possible to draw a team from country X if you have already one in you group, excepted if there is already on in each group)"

I disagree.
I so no reason why a team from a specific Nation couldnt be in the same group with other teams of same nation. I dont agree that there should be restrictions how those teams are divided into grouops.

Exameple CL Football, you do have conditions like those and see what happens, 95% of teams that are qualified into 1/4s or semis are England, Spanish, Italian, German.

So in my opinion this "rule" will only make stronger nations stronger and weaker nations weaker...

"You could add something about that (i.e. not possible to draw a team from country X if you have already one in you group, excepted if there is already on in each group)"

I disagree.
I so no reason why a team from a specific Nation couldnt be in the same group with other teams of same nation. I dont agree that there should be restrictions how those teams are divided into grouops.

Exameple CL Football, you do have conditions like those and see what happens, 95% of teams that are qualified into 1/4s or semis are England, Spanish, Italian, German.

So in my opinion this "rule" will only make stronger nations stronger and weaker nations weaker...

Bad comparison I think, because in football you can buy players from other countries, and money is the only basis. In NC the only basis is country, and ther's less fun to play teams from your own country

In discussion on selection of teams for future years, specifically about teams from the same country in same brackets: let me weigh in with 2 thoughts
1. Knockando is quoted as saying:

Knockando - Apremont wrote on Sun, 30 September 2012 11:42

In NC the only basis is country, and there's less fun to play teams from your own country

And to me there is a mixed bag of feelings when playing a team from your own country. Some part makes it feel like it is less fun. But another part is, 'Oh boy we get the showdown with the other team in week ____.'
But perhaps I am answering from a country where we do not discuss together who is on what team and try to make one team the strongest team as has occurred in the past for other nations. We just try to put together people who like each other enough, or don't have someone on the team they don't want to play with.

2. From USA perspective, there is a time zone enhancement to play with people in similar time zone. With that, we do not have such scheduling issues as has already occurred in week one of this Year NC. 2 of AMD's first 4 matches occurred at 3:00am my time and 4:00am my time. Now I don't want to sound like a player who forced people to play at horrible hours to prove some point, but I have to say there was a BIG group watching the one USA team play the other in week one, during USA evening hours, and I note there were not any Europeans tuned in to watch those matches.

So my overall point may be, neither system is without flaws. And if we really think the "ranking" of top 4 (5, 6) or whatever number player is a determining factor to who gets to pick their group, then it should also be the random factor to how groups get assigned.

and germany has 100 top TTR players, france 100, USA 50... and so on.
so if u place germany A in group and take it from other germans, then french and USA u only boost the teams that from the start have a better/vast amount of players to recruit. at least is how i see it

why should the teams be split depending on nation? with so many german teams it is just not possible to prevent two german teams meeting in RR(and french teams similar) Now is anyone interested in reducing the number of teams? Not really I guess. So whenever german teams have to meet in RR why shouldn`t US teams too?

when talking about assigning groups there is one point though that I would like to throw in for discussion. Bassie brought it up two years ago and us two discussed it for a while, but then he - sort of - retired and myself quitted beeing active as well, so we never brought it up, but here is his suggestion:

NC is quite special - very often we see surprises. ELO for seeding lacks a bit in case of NC. So how about doing the seeding for NC on base of the previous NC(s)? Points could be assigned to each player for a match won/tied - plus additional points for the teams outcome. Example: a won match gives a player 3 pts, getting to KO phase 1 pt, winning the NC 7 pts, etc.
These pts would stay with a player in case she/he changes team. New players would have to start from scratch. Advantage would be that the seeding of the teams would be based on the previous NCs rather than on ELO. I think with a little finetuning regarding the pts to distribute and some work in counting up the previuos NCs it could be an interesting change.

After the massive changes of this year, I think we need to simplify the rules as much as possible. On that regardm Mas' rules is giving more work to set the tourney ready.

The groupping doesnt need restrictions indeed.
Onyx is right about the US clash : it was indeed fun to have a busy american night when you miss all the afternoon fun at Europe CEST time.

About Mas' proposal : definitely something out of the box, but this may prevent a team from picking one extra rookie in their team.
I don't think we should seed all the teams, and leave it to the responsibility of captains or their rep. Low maintenance and more fun to have an event similar to an opening ceremony !

Looking for something better than ELO ist certainly a good idea.
That's why I liked the RFAD/Patterson idea (and I wouldn't mind if it leads to e.g. Americans picking other Americans to have at leas one match with the same time zone).
Precious NC results looks like more work, but would of course be perfect (if anything can be perfect here).

If we have teams from the same nation in a group, I suggest to change the schedule in order to have these teams meet in the first round(s).

If we have teams from the same nation in a group, I suggest to change the schedule in order to have these teams meet in the first round(s).

I totally agree with that too, because i.e. this year, if red or champagne need a win to qualify in the last round, and got it, I'm sure that some players from team ending 5th place will think about an arrangement...even if they say "no, I won't" now !

If we have teams from the same nation in a group, I suggest to change the schedule in order to have these teams meet in the first round(s).

I totally agree with that too, because i.e. this year, if red or champagne need a win to qualify in the last round, and got it, I'm sure that some players from team ending 5th place will think about an arrangement...even if they say "no, I won't" now !

Well here I firmly disagree. Honestly, nobody would think that the Germans would find an arrangement between their teams in the last round, because we know they don't work together.

So, this rule would only 'target' the French teams and suggest that the French teams could be likely to find an arrangement. It has been 8 years that the French showed up with at least 2 teams, and a problem never occured on that regard.

If we have teams from the same nation in a group, I suggest to change the schedule in order to have these teams meet in the first round(s).

I totally agree with that too, because i.e. this year, if red or champagne need a win to qualify in the last round, and got it, I'm sure that some players from team ending 5th place will think about an arrangement...even if they say "no, I won't" now !

Well here I firmly disagree. Honestly, nobody would think that the Germans would find an arrangement between their teams in the last round, because we know they don't work together.

So, this rule would only 'target' the French teams and suggest that the French teams could be likely to find an arrangement. It has been 8 years that the French showed up with at least 2 teams, and a problem never occured on that regard.

Let's trust each other, come on !

Since I play, I always hear about people "suspecting cheatering". There are still and always players like that. A rule to avoid suspicion and keep a good spirit seems to be a good rule for me. Especially if it only change the order of the clashes, really a little thing...

That's more than a matter of trust, because there's more to it than not losing a match on purpose (which I would trust everyone not to do).

Let's say before the last round my team has nothing left to win or lose (= we either cannot qualify any more, or the position is clear whatever the result of the last clash).
Can I give my best player a break?
Can I take my match easy (= play under conditions where I wouldn't do it if the match is very important)?
Can I offer restart if the opponent is caught by bot, has an accident with his mouse, ...?

If I do that againt Another German Team nobody will even notice.
But if AGT would stand for Austria's Got Talent and if they are in the race for qualification? I'd probably feel bad whatever I did ... and I'd prefer to never be in this situation.

If you had a lot of friends on AGT (German) and a lot of enemies on AGT (Austrian) these things could still happen and i bet some people WOULD object if it SEEMED you went 'easy' on your German friends, especially the team that might be the 'victim'.

In many ways it's almost impossible to make absolutely sure teams perform their 'duty' so whatever we do, trust is needed there.

The one thing we must make ABSOLUTELY sure of is that it can NEVER be to your OWN advantage to loose a match because then your 'sportmanship' would actually demand that you try that!?!
But that's another subject, of course

Is this important or no ?
For stats ? For NC ? For Fantasy & nightmare games ?

For fantasy and nightmare games yes, but these are not serious competitions, therefore no harm. Maybe it would be fair to announce, that some players will not play (or just as substitute in case of need).
For NC no, if they are weak players, otherwise they influence the teams drawing. In that case these players should get a ban for next NC.

Looking for something better than ELO ist certainly a good idea.
That's why I liked the RFAD/Patterson idea (and I wouldn't mind if it leads to e.g. Americans picking other Americans to have at leas one match with the same time zone).
Precious NC results looks like more work, but would of course be perfect (if anything can be perfect here).

If we have teams from the same nation in a group, I suggest to change the schedule in order to have these teams meet in the first round(s).

Might as well start suggesting rule changes now, since I have nothing else to do in NC!

1.) A better method of allocating teams into groups.

This year they were not even. When the 1st and 2nd seed of a group get knocked out, it probably just isn't bad luck, or poor playing - though some of that was involved. Also can look at clashes needed to get into the KO round - only 2.5 for Group A, 3 for Group C (if remove ITA results) vs. 3.5 and good tie breakers for Group B.

The other problem of uneven groups is almost always you will have the 2nd best in the weakest group, so not only do you get easier clashes during the RR, but you also get a 1st round bye.

Someone else can suggest how to go about assigning groups. Some kind of draft perhaps.

2.) Multiple Teams from the same nation in a group.

This is going to happen no matter what with countries with multiple teams, but it could be minimized.

Personally I think it should be spread out, but others might like playing fellow countrymen in the RR.

Either way, I think the schedule should be such that teams from the same country play at the beginning of the RR. Even if people think no manipulation would happen, all it takes is one match (not even 1 clash) to mess with the standings in the last round. Why even chance it when moving around the schedule isn't that difficult.

Here is my input, after "round of 12" results and i should say i didn't saw any game of playoffs:

SEEDING
Only 2 of 8 teams best seeded managed go throw to quarterfinals is that a reason to say that seeding method doesn't work? I don't think so....its not perfect but till now is the best we can get (and we can't only look to 2012NC results)

@Drake (and @Sysy) Drake said groups were not even and 2nd best is almost always from weakest group and get a bye for bonus.

I see 4 teams of the "weakest" group in QF
I see all other 2nd in group out of competition
I see all 4th in group going throw QF

What you have to say about that?

For the moment is just what i wanted to say....i leave the rest for the end of competition.

Well Rui - one reason is that your recognition of "weak group" is weak.
I always thought that (with UEG, CAT and your team) our group was the toughest - and that shows in the playoffs. Btw. statisticaly it is not really that surprising that all 4 of our group are in QF, as two teams of this group had a bye anyway - Rui, which means that TWO teams of that group were automatically in QF - would be nice to see all 4 in Semi

And thanks for the compliment that us weakie players made it to QF

In my memories NC has always been THE competition of surprises - what`s new?

There has to be a defined rule for seeding with seeding regarding to a ranking, which is independent of country, friendship or whatever individual decision, else we will get complaints right from the seeding. ELO is one possiblity, but I still think Bassies idea of finding a ranking based on the outcome of the previous NCs may be the best. Especially as the performance in NC is often so much different than in "normal" games.

I'm sure Drake meant the same as me. Group B was by far the most homogenic / competitive with 6 teams with a positive / nil game difference.

A ticket fiended in a single game could have given a team 1st or 5th. (Drake and I are not posting because we are out... A ticket fiended could have given us 1st, but we both could have played better and gave our team a KO round spot...).

It can mean indeed 2 things. Either each team is not strong enough to beat whatever opponent on a constant basis, either they all had the same level.

In group A, heterogeneity can mean also 2 things : were UEG and CAT dominating because they are super strong, or because the global level of the group was not as homogenous as group B.

Drake's point is : is there an alternative for the attribution of the bye for the KO round ?

Seeding with past exploits ?
On what basis ? Last year ? Then OLE would at the bottom.
Past years ? A new team with high-profile players would then be placed at the bottom of the seeding ?

I still think like Dea that RFAD/Patterson way would bring something new and fun, and more transparent -since ERPS' tool is obsolete-.

I wanted to bring also in the discussion the number max of players in a team. It was this year impossible for teams to make heavy changes but it would be nice to have even more teams next year. Honestly, 8 to 12 players in a team is a bit too much. To find a captain may be a problem but just look at Italy's organization, which was quite successful this year, and which kept the unity of the teams.

On a global overview :

The new format with clash ties and match ties favors a more competitive event, which was the main objective of a rule change. More surprises and more upsets is good for NC !
In KO with the new format and considering that a small bunch of players is not dominating TTR anymore as they used to, an upset can happen anytime.

If somebody is willing to do all the work needed, he should volunteer now - it's no use voting for this option, unless we know that it can be provided

also good in my eyes:
Any method based on people's perception how good teams really are.

V1 - RFAD/Patterson idea

V2 - new idea in reaction to Masimo's comment about avoiding country/friendship/other individual influence:
Do a survey - each captain gives rating points for the teams (including his own): 1 point for weakest team, 2 for last but one ...
Points only sent to the person conducting the survey, not open, so there can be no tactical decision (like "let's give UEG 10 points so they don't finish in our group").

Maybe some other distribution of points, eg like they do in the Eurovision Song Contest is better, let's see what people think about that.
If teams end up with equal points (eg with the Eurovision Song Contest model we may well end up with some teams sharing 0 points) we can then rank those according to ELO.

Survey is good but not efficient and high maintenance if proposed to the whole community...

Considering my/our (i include here Truck, dea, Qorlas and some others) experience of organizing NC, players only care about a rule change when their team/interest is concerned.

I tried to get some feedback on this year's Round Robin... and it was quite the fail. Do no read it the following negatively : most players do not really care about details like seeding provided that they can show up, be told the new rules, play and have fun.

Sum of the ELO of the best 4 players makes no sense with teams of 12 players, or with teams including players that played 4 games in 2012 before NC.

Better than asking the captains, all the players who want to contribute (the usual same 10) and give their opinion can share their perception and be included in that point method.

Once the teams are published, teams have 2 days to decide on their point distribution and send it to <whoever> (I could do that if nobody else feels like it).
If they don't send anything, they don't ... method works just as well if some votes are missing.
Whether the captain does it on his own, asks his team members or runs a survey throughout his country is his business, I wouldn't care.

That should be simple, and doesn't take too much time. I would expect more or less all teams to give their vote. It's just like giving a board vote, that normally works as well.

Anyways I think it's clearly better than ELO, because everything is better than ELO (absolutely agree with Sysy's reasoning here)

If you want more tactics involved, you could have the top team of each group draft the remaining teams. Usually we have 2 or 3 groups, so for Group A and B, you could use the previous year's winner and runner up, then if there is a Group C, that could be the team with the highest ELO (I know ELO isn't supposed to be good, but its decent on the high end, not on the low end.. meaning its alot easier to be under rated than over rated as a team, and it would just be used for 1 team i.e. UEG!, if at all).

The benefit of drafting is each group leader can decide how they want to form their group - pick the easiest teams, pick teams in same time zone, don't pick teams from same nation, etc.

I am fine with uneven groups as long as it isn't done basically random (i.e. ELO).

I looked at how many "upsets" there were in the groups. First defined as beating a team 2 spots or higher seeded.

Group A = 2
Group B = 5
Group C = 1

Then as beating or tying (half point) a team just 1 spot higher

Group A = 6.5
Group B = 9.5
Group C = 5.5

Obviously there are going to be upsets, but it seems Group B wasn't seeded as well as the others.

I also looked at tied matches. Not sure how this correlates to the seeding, but it defintely had an effect on the outcome of the top 12.

In Group B, AMD had 10, RED 9, then the teams that made it to the KO round had 5 or 6.

In Group A, PRUE had 6, then the teams that made it to KO had between 2 and 5.

Eventhough it hurt our Team, I still like playing 6 games, so there are even number of starts. In fact I think there should have only been 6 games in the KO phase too.

Looking at the first KO round, the results would have been:
TuS:OLE 1.5-2.5
BIP:SNS 1-2 (the unplayed match would have mattered)
SOS:SMP .5-3.5
Champ:AT 1-3 (the tie breaker match would not have been needed)

I am sorry - i do not follow the whole dscussion regularly and miss a bit of info so count that in please - and sorry Rui for misunderstanding you.

I am not sure I understand the whole thing .... Drake and Sysy are trying to make us believe that they are out of the game cause to bad grouping?

I looked up their this years NC stats, Drake is up with 1 win, 2 losses and 2 ties, Julien with 1 win, 2 losses and 3 ties (sorry for warming that up ) - I would say that just isn`t enough to make it to KO phase unless the rest of your team can make up for that.

Now please do explain to me what makes you so sure that your performance would have been much better in another group????

Btw. it is quite interesting to see that noone of RED is complaining about the group they had to play in (and that was really a surprise for me to see RED beeing out after RR)

As chrism stated - any type of seeding will have advantages and disadvantages. I agree with him that at the moment ELO is the easiest (my/Bassies suggestion would only make the difference that it would be based ONLY on NC results - else it would be the same)

Personally I am absolutely against the "picking" idea (I think I read the suggestion in one post? The group headers pick the teams alternating?)

Not trying to get involved in a discussion about the seeding and which way to do it, but maybe there is a little bit of misunderstanding (due to language?) on Masimo's part (i'm sure not intended bad because that's not Masimo's way, OLE ) : i don't think sysy / Drake are making suggestions related to the elimination of their team. They just feel things could be done better if a different method is used and would have posted the same if their team had gone through.

2) Drake and I contribute all through the year in the forum for every tourney, even if we are not involved. We often help to organize tourneys, and try to push consistanly for changes/improvements in the community, which is almost impossible !

3) If you want to hear that we didn't play at our levels, no problem... We didn't. And I personally played bad 2 matches.

But would you tell the same to Angel, whose team reach RR, with his 3-3-1 record with comparable opponents to me (not always the easiest) + with 1 "easy" match ?

If you just look at the numbers like you do, you can tell that I play bad.
If you look at the lineups in your group and group B, with all due respect, there's more density in group B weekly and in every clash. UEG and CAT were dominant and they didn't even use their A team at all...
And if I was only looking at the numbers like you do, I could say that your team would not deserve to reach KO since you lost 01-23 (!) to UEG.

a)Does all that prevent us from judging the Round Robin ? I hope not.

b)Do we think our team didn't play well enough to reach KO ? Yes. And so do the Red I met last week.

c)Do we deserve to be eliminated more than other teams in our group ? Here, I don't think so.

d) Does that mean that we post just because we are angry ? Sorry, but we are not. We talked about the Round Robin 10 minutes as a max on Thursday, do not worry, we recovered pretty well !

e) Would you still post if your team was out ? Probably not.

Seeding
We all agree that ELO is not ideal. Some think that it is good enough, and i still think that it is not, like mentioned in the posts above.

Another argument against the current seeding method :

Tons of teams had 7+ players. Is the 4 players ELO sum then representative of their strength in the ROund Robin ? My opinion is NO.

If you find your group with teams of only 5 or 6 players, then you know the strength of your opponent. Lineups vary slightly from one week to another.

If you get to play teams with 7+ players, you might find yourself happy to play the bottom 4 instead of the top 4... And you can get screwed because a big team let his top players rest against your direct opponent !

There, we really need we a max number of players. A big team like TUS or CAT could be managed by the same captain under the same entity like Italy: TuS 1/TuS 2. Team spirit is still here, and no need to find another captain, which is pretty hard.

I do not have the time to read and reread all these posts and admit that I miss out on about 75 % of the posts here - maybee I should stop posting my opinion.

But still your post deserves an answer, Sysy:

at your pts 1-3:
1. for your effort in trying to improve competitive tourneys I really want to thank you and Drake very much - I know how much work and effort that is and how tiring it is as well .... I did it long enough ...

2. For my misunderstandings of your intentions I appologize.

3. I didn`t mean to bash on you for your coming out this NC. It is NC and personally I would never say "someone did not play at his level" because NC is special - I saw soooo many upsets - just scroll through the history of NC ... In NC it may happen to all of us that be get beaten by underdogs.
More interesting to me here would be to see how the tied games might have changed the picture in case these games would have been bo5 as played in previuos NCs - would that have changed the picture? Unless someone looks at that I will try to check that - given the time.

I disagree with your C though:

What exactly do you mean that you "deserved" the elimination less than other teams in your group???
This impliments that a few of the teams that made it to KO should not have made it. Why not? Does the higher ranking of a team gives it a priority for KO? Do teams "deserve" to reach KO? I do not think so. If so we would not need RR - just proceed the 4 highest ranked team to QF ... short and easy competition .... Excuse me, but I think that any argument like that is quite a arrogant and offensive.

and to our appearance vs UEG - I knew the outcome of that clash when I sent the lineup in (was worth the fun visualising the ueg faces when they realized our lineup )

But I am still missing your answer what makes you so sure that your team would have proceeded in another group?

Mr Bean schrieb am Mon, 26 November 2012 23:38

i don't think sysy / Drake are making suggestions related to the elimination of their team. They just feel things
could be done better
if a different method is used and would have posted the same if their team had gone through.

Louis - what exactly do you think are "things" that could be done better? In context of the above discussion I would like to know whether you mean that some teams that did not make it would have proceeded instead of others? What would be "better" about that? As I mentioned above - is there any incidence which teams SHOULD be in KO and which not??? Sorry folks I have massive problems with sayings like that.

It may bee that this year the groups were not "even" as Drake says - but even to what? What exactly is "even"? Is it regarding to ranking? But then ELO as we use it should take care of exactly that. Is it regarding to personal preferences? Hmmm - problem for me. Please let me know what you mean by "even" ... (btw. were the groups ever "even" in NC?)

I am not sure I understand the whole thing.

I do not object to improve the system, but in my eyes some points have to be given:

1. Seeding must be EASY
2. Seeding must be reproducable (that means anything that involves players/captains/TDs etc to decide who plays in which group is obsolet for me)
3. Seeding should be fast, no long messing around

Maybee you remember that a few NCs ago there were arguments that players downplayed their ELO to (maybee) reach another group ... - as far as I recall that wasn`t really successful to do ...

As to the large teams ... difficult question - very difficult ... I agree they can cause problems, but I don`t know how to argue for changes. We are a rather large team too, but basically 5 decent players - and ahead of NC we were only 4 really competitive players ..... TuS had too many really strong players (which did not help at the end) - other teams may have similar problems/thoughts. We could of course limit the number of players/team. But would that not only lead to kicking the lower ranked players out of the team? And in case they cannot find an new team they are out of NC at all ...

10 players was set up cause of 5match clashes - now with only 4/clash it might be an option to reduce it to 7/8 .... still I am not sure that would change much on the outcome (we would probably get more teams - which would of course be nice!)
But surely worth to discuss

also good in my eyes:
Any method based on people's perception how good teams really are.

Do a survey - each captain gives rating points for the teams (including his own): 1 point for weakest team, 2 for last but one ...
Points only sent to the person conducting the survey, not open, so there can be no tactical decision (like "let's give UEG 10 points so they don't finish in our group").

Dea - if this captain/rating system is better than ELO - doesn`t that mean that ELO is not correct reflecing the players strength? Then why do we use ELO at all? We could do a weekly survey on who to be #1

also - couldn`t a few teams secretly agree on voting one team up high and another down low? Tactical team approach (although thus we could get a totally new idea of team cooperation into the championship )

I missed out on the Patterson/RFAD suggestion and couldn`t find it in this post - could someone give me the link? thx

The grouping itself is not the problem - the question is whether the ranking is correct, ie. whether a 7th ranked team is on its apropriate place or whether it should be ranked differently.
Easiest for ranking is ELO - but as I mentioned several times before, NC is special and a ranking based on NC performance might be an alternative. If time allows me I will try to construct an example.
We could make the seeding random - with the three highest ranked teams seeded in different groups? Most of you won`t like that either .... you see, whatever we choose, someone will mislike it, especially if they think that they don`t deserve it.

I am afraid that any ranking system will make some feel that their group is stronger than another or that the groups are not balanced. I do not see how that can be overcome.

And finally - do we really want "totally balanced" NCs? Do we really want to know ahead of the tournament that UEG will win it?